While Deacon was awed by the devastation the Sea’s Tempest wrought, he took his eyes off the crumbling offices beneath his feet. The cracks in the walls had snaked their way over to him as well as some of the constructs started clambering over their kin to access the roof. Deacon had his back to the chamber wall and began shuffling toward the roof of room four. He had to check his footing with every step as the roof of room five rapidly began collapsing into itself.

The footing over room four wasn’t any better as the clockwork soldiers began destroying all the load bearing supports in these rooms. Deacon was glad his friends managed to escape before he drew all of the enemies attentions. Internally he hoped Tantus had made it back to the ladder they came down on. With that thought the first of the metal men stomped its way across the roof to get at Deacon and summarily collapsed the section it was walking across. That forced Deacon to jump toward the edge of roof closest to the large metal door in the back the of this wide open chamber.

From here Deacon had a clearer view of what was happening below. There were at least fifty automatons trying to force the doors open. That didn’t make any sense to Deacon considering the Grave hat sent so many after his party. That was when Deacon felt an impact to the back of his head that sent him flipping over the edge ass over tea kettle. He landed on his feet without attempting to correct himself in midair. Cat’s grace was showing its value again. Unfortunately, he was now surrounded by five foot tall robot soldiers. Deacon tried to ghost his way through them but rebounded off the first one. It seemed like they were effectively enchanted items.

That bit of experimentation cost him as two others took a swing at him. The time between being rebuffed and his senses returning to him gave them the opportunity to strike. Both hits dropped his health by twenty five percent each. If it wasn’t for Mantarok’s blessing he’d be below one hundred percent health right now. He activated Dragon Claw Barrage burning fifty percent soul energy leaving him with two hundred fifty to work with. Normally the ability would drive him forward twenty feet but after the first few automatons were shredded, he was stopped dead around the ten foot mark. Then he took a punch to his right side feeling his ribs crack. Now he was at half of his total health. He used Spectral Jump to clear the group who were attempting to dog pile him. At his apex he used Spectral Dash to move him toward the center sloped ramp. That brough his massive soul energy down to two hundred forty percent. From this height Deacon could clearly see that it sloped toward a smaller set of metal doors that another fifty automatons were trying to open on the lower side.

Deacon wondered while he was in freefall why they were trying to open these doors. Then it hit him. If this was a manufacturing facility, maybe there were more bays filled with these things. He asked himself how many could that one creature possibly control? Then he landed gracefully on his feet surrounded by a junkyards full of metal parts.

“Deacon! We need to get Tantus over here. The three of us can’t read gnomish!” yelled Hani from the railing in front of room one.

As soon as he did, several constructs turned their top hat covered heads toward the sound. A division of them broke off from trying to open the heavy metal doors and began clambering up toward Hani. That was when Deacon felt movement amongst the broken and scattered pieces on the ground. There was a torso dragging itself toward the marching throng of constructs at the top of the incline. That group was on their way to get Deacon. But there was something different about the crawling one. It was headed away from Deacon and toward the others. Then it struck Deacon like a bolt of lightning. He fired off two then three Nether Beams half the distance up the hill between him and the oncoming machines. That created a long patch of Nether ice they would have to navigate before they’d reach him.

One Spectral Dash later and he was between the crawling torso and the collapsing line of marching clockwork soldiers who kept slipping on the ice. There was a horrendous clattering of metal as they all succumbed to gravity and the laws of motion once they lost their footing. Sun Wu mentioned earlier that they were designed without flexible torso’s. If Deacon wasn’t terrified the black hat on top of this half of a robot would get away, he’d grab a seat and watch three stooges on ice.

Deacon reached down and began yanking the hat off the construct. It came free easily this time. It seems the lighting strike had done a number on Grave Hat. Half of the sharp lances it called legs were just gone and the hat seemed charred on one side. As it came free from the head all the other machines ceased moving and clattered to the ground if they were unbalanced in their positions. The hat squirmed in hands from the unparalyzed side. It felt cruel to kill it considering how helpless it was once it was on its own. Then it poked one of the tines into Deacon’s finger. Several slashes of Deacon’s dragon claws later, and it was just chunks of meat on the ground. Then he received new slate notifications.

Quest complete: What the Crok?- Typhus Bloodbeard has a hunch that something nefarious may be going on in a nearby town. Investigate to see if anything untoward is happening in the small town of Croks Landing. Rewards- 500 Guild Renown, New Ability: Ghost in the Machine.

Ghost in the Machine- This ability allows a Nether Monk to possess any mechanical construct not inhabited by another source of Arcanum. Your body will disappear, and you will embody the target. Cost is one hundred soul energy per hour.

“Ooh, that’s a good one,” Deacon said smiling to himself.

“Is it over?” asked Tantus from halfway up the ladder.

“Yea, get your ass down here. We have to figure out why they were trying to open these doors,” Deacon hollered back up.

“If the danger is over, I would very much like to be retrieved by someone,” came the anxious voice of Alfred from under a pile of rubble.

“Oh shit, sorry Alfred I’ll be right there,” Deacon said as he jumped up and over the railing easily. He nodded at Tantus that just floated to the ground using his Ambulator.

There were unmoving clockwork soldiers everywhere. All left in whatever their last position was. The dust from the demolition of the offices added to the settling dust from the ghost ships cannonade. The red lights were still flashing making all the statuesque soldiers look all the more menacing. Deacon made it to the rubble pile and started clearing anything twelve pounds or lighter with Polterheist. Eventually he found Alfred amongst the rubble.

“You want to go in the bag or hang out with us out here?” Deacon asked.

“I have some thoughts about that, but I really should focus on repairs to my dimensional member. Thank you for the offer, Master Deacon, but the bag it is for now,” Alfred replied before Deacon turned and his Dungeon Cylinder slipped into his bag.

Deacon and Tantus made their way across the facility to the opposite side that housed labs three, two, and one. The door for lab one was just gone. Apparently, Typhus had taken it off the hinges and thrown it into the walkway to avoid an accidental lock in. Deacon was fine with that. The interior of lab one had several different lab tables each with a different set of equipment on them. Aside from all the dust tracked in by the adventurers, this room smelled sterile. There was even some space in the back cordoned off by plastic sheets. Deacon walked passed a complicated liquid refinement process on one of the tables. He lagged behind while the others kept searching. Everything not bolted down to that table went into his bag. There were beakers and long shafts of tubing, as well as a hand cranked centrifuge. All items he knew he could use to make potions. Maybe even stronger potions if he could refine the solutions further.

“Look at this,” Tantus called out as he perused some of the papers on a desk in the far corner.

“What is it?” Deacon asked as he let Polterheist gather the rest of the equipment.

“These are the notes from the First Engineer. Let’s see. They laughed at me when I said I could make five foot tall fighting gentlemen. My achievement here is a testament to my genius. My metal giants will usher in a new age for all Gnome kind. The manufacturing facility is complete. Now we just need to train the Grave Hat to obey commands. We have secured several of the best Gnome animal handlers and they have taken the prerequisite abilities in their classes. It’s important that we watch out for these bleeding heart monster tamers. They always end up siding with the creatures over their own kind,” Tantus read aloud.

“They really tried to use monsters as the catalyst for their army of clockwork men?” Amanda asked.

“No doubt there is an entry about how it all went horribly wrong,” quipped Hani.

“The world has gone dark. The gnome capital lies in ruin. There was no point in deploying my clockwork gentlemen. The end came from the stars above not some marauding army of humans. If it was not for the timely intervention of the pantheon of gods, our race would have been wiped off the face of the Mortal Plane. As the foremost scientific mind among what’s left of my people, I must leave to help rebuild a new life. I will shut down this site and rebuild atop the nearby mountain range. Our entrance to the Deep Cavern will be sealed. All our plans to help the Dwarves are to be dropped. We must prosper and repopulate. War is no longer a luxury we can afford,” Tantus finished the last passage in the notes.